<FONT SIZE=-1>HP OUT IN THE OPEN WITH LINUX</FONT>

03/18/1999

HP Out In The Open With Linux

The open source movement and Linux in particular are taking the world of big business software developers by storm. IBM, SAP, Netscape and Oracle are all recent converts. For its part, HP recently created the Open Source Support Organization (OSSO) as part of its new E-Services Division.

Wayne Caccamo, director of the OSSO, is the point man who was instrumental in forging an alliance with the Puffin Group, a rougish band of open source programmers who are in the process of porting Linux to run on HP's PA-RISC platform.

To find out more about those developments, HP Professional,Associate Editor, Ken Deats, interviewed Caccamo and Christopher Beard, president of The Puffin Group for the April editon of HP Professional. Below are excerpts from his interviews with both men:

Caccamo:"We haven’t crossed the bridge yet of what the go to market image of Linux will be. We’ll probably go through the distribution channel like Red Hat and factory install by the Channel Partner like we do with NT."

"The purpose of the OSSO is to combine all our efforts into a cohesive open source strategy."

"It's very easy to develop on Linux and deploy on HP-UX. Common APIs and common tools are a growing funnel for future HP-UX deployment based on a customer's needs."

"There may be some things that Linux can't handle, like failover clusters, where it makes more sense for us to push HP-UX. Like in classic data center environments."

Everything in HP's software product line is being evaluated for possible porting to Linux: OpenMail is currently in testing and should be Linux-ready in the near future and a Linux-based NNM console is "being looked at."

Beard:Beard describes himself as a non-traditionalist and the company as "a group of passionate open-source developers ... with considerable experience in all aspects of Linux."

"We act as an intermediary or liaison." The Puffin group currently consists of three people in the core group with an active mailing list of over 150 programmers.

"We can generate an incredible response from the development community. Our goal is to help corporations and the Linux community get together."

"HP and the open source developers had different motivations but the same goals. That's why the relationship works."

"The developers are in it for the experience and challenge, but they still have to generate revenue streams. They work on other projects to pay the bills."Can HP and Linux cultures Co-exist?